Fuel cells have been out of reach for consumers but the promise of extensive battery life in a small form factor is too amazing to not look forward to. While at the CES Unveiled show we ran into Mouli Ramani from Lilliputian systems and he told us about the first consumer ready fuel cell power system, the Nectar Mobile Power System.

In its current form the Nectar Mobile Power is a 55,000 mWh USB charger that would be able to fully charge an iPhone every night for two weeks and the slogan "two weeks of power" was thrown around quite a bit. The cartridges are filled with butane but Mouli says that any hydro-carbon could be used. Butane has an advantage that it can be taken on airplanes in small amounts. :)

The key technological change for this iteration of fuel cellss is a silicon-based fuel cell catalyst, being manufactured by Intel up in Massachusetts, allowing the device to more portable, and more importantly, inexpensive.

We interviewed Mouli about the product and plans for the future, like getting this tech in laptops and phones! We plan on talking with him later in the week as we have quite a few more questions to dive into with him, stay tuned!

This is a great idea. My firm provides apps for mobile field workers, mostly to permit remote data-collection on smartphones and tablets (inspections, audits, compliance, safety, military, health, etc). Keeping devices charged is a big issue for our customers. Nectar Mobile Power System will provide a very welcome improvement in worker autonomy.